The residents of Oldcastle are fighting what they see as an industrial takeover.

An Ontario Municipal Board hearing that begins Tuesday will pit landowners who live near the heavily industrialized area of Tecumseh against the municipality that wants to increase its industrial footprint.

“Most of the families that have been here since the mid-1800s — their descendants are still here,” said Judy Wellwood-Robson, who lives beside her sister and other family members on land her family has owned since 1830. “People came before industry.”

Wellwood-Robson, 69, helped create Friends Of Oldcastle Development, known as FOOD. The group has battled the Town of Tecumseh for more than a year, ever since learning the municipality quietly planned to convert more than 50 acres of nearby farm land to industrial use.

FOOD has managed to raise almost $30,000 to help with its David-and-Goliath legal challenge — against Tecumseh’s taxpayer-funded efforts.

The OMB hearing is a rezoning application and official plan amendment filed by the town of Tecumseh, which intends to allow development of an industrial business park at the northeast corner of Concession 8 and North Talbot Road.

“It is an industrial area,” said Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara, noting that the town has many amenities elsewhere. “It has been designated like that for 40 years now. The ship sailed a long time ago.”

About 5,500 people work in factories located within Oldcastle boundaries. Many of them live in Tecumseh, which has a population of 24,000.

“We have 400-plus businesses there already,” McNamara said. “It’s about making sure our kids and grandkids have future employment.”

But the way Wellwood-Robson sees it: Oldcastle has all the makings of a residential paradise — with high-end enclaves, farmland waiting for homes, the privately donated Weston Park, and a rich history of farmers and community spirit.

“It’s a jewel that Tecumseh doesn’t recognize,” she adds.

Wellwood-Robson, whose great-great-grandfather, Denis Downing, was a founding father of Oldcastle, said in 1967 then-Reeve Bob Pulleyblank pledged that Oldcastle would remain 60 per cent residential and 40 per cent industrial. Now Wellwood-Robson estimates Oldcastle represents 1,087 acres of industry and 109 acres of housing.

“It’s an industry-only plan for Oldcastle,” Wellwood-Robson said. “Our fear is that industry will make a complete swoop around us and absorb the houses into industry.

“The Oldcastle community will simply vanish.”

Oldcastle is a hamlet with of population of several hundred people. Residents occasionally refer to the area as the “camel’s hump,” since on a map Oldcastle looks like a bump sticking into Windsor to the north. Many Oldcastle farms have existed since the 1800s when the area began as an Irish outpost.

Oldcastle was once considered a last rest stop for stagecoaches heading from Windsor to Essex County. Though originally a farming community, some 40 years ago industry began sprouting along North Talbot Road east of Walker Road in what is now Del Duca Industrial Park.

Today more than 400 tool-and-die and other industrial companies fill the area up to Concession 8. Wellwood-Robson feels that allowing industry on 50 more acres of land, vaguely zoned “hamlet development,” would physically cut off two residential clusters from one another — one on North Talbot Road and one on Oldcastle Road.

Worse, Wellwood-Robson said turning more agricultural land to industrial would create a “domino effect” resulting in a full-fledged industrial onslaught over the next couple of decades.

Wellwood-Robson said Oldcastle residents were always under the impression that when the town finally installed a sewer system, residential development would at last flourish. She said residents were told in the past that the 71-acre Ciociaro Club and its sports fields would serve as a buffer between factories and homes in Oldcastle, as would Concession 8.

Tecumseh’s $74-million area overhaul — paid largely by senior levels of government — will take 20 years to complete. But town leaders hope to expand industry. The update includes a recently completed $7-million sewer system along Concession 8 that allows for local expansion.

McNamara said the two residential pockets in Oldcastle need not worry. The town does not want to eliminate housing but it hopes to attract more industry along the Highway 401 corridor. The town is looking at rezoning two other parcels of land to industrial use — another 50 acres near the one currently being proposed and about 150 acres north of Highway 46 and south of the 401, between Concessions 8 and 9.

“It’s about making sure we have a well-balanced tax base in our community,” McNamara said. “It’s about providing jobs in our area.”

OMB hearing

An Ontario Municipal Board hearing on allowing industrial use of agricultural land at North Talbot Road and Concession 8 will start Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Council Chambers of the Tecumseh Municipal Building, 917 Lesperance Rd. The hearing is scheduled for four days.

Judy Wellwood-Robson is shown at her Oldcastle home in Tecumseh, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. She said many residents are concerned that the Town of Tecumseh is focusing on industrial growth in Oldcastle.Dan Janisse /
Windsor Star

Judy Wellwood-Robson stands near a pond she restored with the help of the Ministry of Natural Resources on land her family has owned since 1830.Dan Janisse /
Windsor Star

This map of Oldcastle, just south of Windsor, shows industrial areas in blue and residential in yellow, on Oldcastle Road and North Talbot Road.Handout /
Windsor Star

The issue of rezoning agricultural land for industrial use on North Talbot Road, east of Concession 8, heads to an Ontario Municipal Board hearing Tuesday.Dan Janisse /
Windsor Star

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